# data[].attributes.body
Although the show had mostly positive feedback there were a few people that couldn't get hooked.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In case you weren't feeling anxious enough, Charlie Brooker's dystopian anthology series Black Mirror is returning later this year with a new batch of episodes that will at least entertain you while piercing your gut with an existential distrust of all things digital. If you don't watch the show, and haven't read any of our wry articles detailing how much we love it despite how miserable it makes us, you might be asking the same question Nerdwriter does at the top of his latest video essay: Why?

"Why do we watch Black Mirror?" he asks, noting that the show is essentially just a "parade of tragedies" that more often than not ends in death and/or destruction for its protagonists. His clever, thoughtful answer lies in a subversion of Aristotle's definition of tragedy's appeal, which is that the pity and fear we experience while watching it results in a satisfying sense of catharsis. That's certainly the case for shows like Game Of Thronesand Breaking Bad, after all.

But Black Mirror, the essay argues, is different, because its tragedies are so often senseless, thus dismantling that road to catharsis while laughing at the concept of a moral takeaway. "We're just left with pity and fear," Nerdwriter says. While that answer will no doubt continue to alienate those confused about the show's appeal, fans will agree that there's something indelible about that result, if only because no other show is willing to put that kind of art on TV.

And anyway, you can always watch a 30 Rock rerun after.

About the author

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In case you weren't feeling anxious enough, Charlie Brooker's dystopian anthology series Black Mirror is returning later this year with a new batch of episodes that will at least entertain you while piercing your gut with an existential distrust of all things digital.

# data[].attributes.body
Black Mirror was aired, for it's first two seasons, on Channel 4. Then in the September of 2015 Netflix bought the rights to the program.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It came as a bit of a surprise to Black Mirror fans when the series jumped ship from Channel 4 to Netflix - but Charlie Brooker has insisted that it wasn't just about money.

Though he didn't go into details, creator and writer Brooker did hint at what occurred at a London Film Festival event.

"I would say the account that appeared of what happened... Somebody didn't just come out and wave a cheque and we ran away from Channel 4 towards it, put it that way."

Brooker insisted that a streaming platform like Netflix is actually the perfect fit for an anthology show like Black Mirror.

"We don't have cliffhangers or recurring characters - and shows that reinvent themselves every week have struggled in the ratings. Ratings were the king for years.

"But on Netflix, we can put the whole thing up and it's like a short story collection, or an album, or tickets to a film festival."

The third series of Black Mirror is comprised of six episodes, with Brooker insisting that there is no 'official' order in which to watch them.

"They don't have shuffle mode on Netflix, but you can watch them in any order," he said. "So it'll be interesting to see what people do."

Six more chilling instalments are also in the works, as part of Netflix's original 12-episode order.

"Netflix allows us to play out on a bigger canvas and take more risks and explore more worlds, without destabilising the Black Mirror sensibility," said producer Annabel Jones.

The entire third series of Black Mirror will drop on Netflix on October 21.

Don't forget to vote for your favourite TV shows in this year's National Television Awards! Longlist voting closes at 11pm on Sunday, October 23.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here's why Black Mirror ended up on Netflix

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It came as a bit of a surprise to Black Mirror fans when the series jumped ship from Channel 4 to Netflix - but Charlie Brooker has insisted that it wasn't just about money. Though he didn't go into details, creator and writer Brooker did hint at what occurred at a London Film Festival event.

# data[].attributes.body
Total number of Black Mirror twitter mentions worldwide from December 2017 to January 2018. With series 4 episode 1 'USS Callister' reaching highest mentions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Netflix Black Mirror social mentions 2018 l Statistic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This statistic presents the total number of mentions worldwide of Netflix series Black Mirror season four on Twitter and Reddit from December 2017 to January 2018, by episode. The episode, USS Callister reported in the highest number of mentions over both Twitter and the Black Mirror subreddit with a total of 46,000 mentions.

# data[].attributes.body
Which episodes are considered audience favourites?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When premiered six years ago on Channel 4 in the U.K., it landed with high acclaim and cult status. With its third and fourth seasons, produced by Netflix, the cult has burst out into the mainstream. The twelve new episodes has cemented Black Mirror as the heir to The Twilight Zone for the digital age. It's not just that the Black Mirror is good-and it really is-but that across 19 episodes, British satirist Charlie Brooker and his array of collaborators have taken full advantage of what the anthology format has to offer in the modern television era.

Black Mirror, whose title refers to the black reflective surface of a digital screen, dedicates each episode to a unique, standalone sci-fi tale of technological concern. It's a show about the ways in which we interact with new technologies, how they changes us, and how human nature bleeds through every time, often in the worst ways. From each initial setup, Brooker and his team extrapolate the disturbing extremes of human behavior that technological advancement may more easily allow.

As with any anthology series, though, Black Mirror is a hit-or-miss enterprise. Not every episode can be a winner. That said, Black Mirror has far more episodes in the hits column than the misses, and even the lesser stories usually offer compellingly designed worlds, some sharp ideas, and impressive performances. Furthermore, the range of the show's imagination is constantly impressive.

So here I present to you a list, from worst to best, of every Black Mirror episode to date.

19. "Playtest"

The second episode of the third season, and the biggest dud of all. "Playtest" is a story about the potential perils of implanting a computer chip in your brain and experiencing a virtual world. Structured as a play on haunted house horror films, blending video game elements, and supplying a constant stream of twists, the real problem with "Playtest" is that it never amounts to much more than a critique of the technology itself. Where more episodes of Black Mirror imagine technology as merely a tool with which humanity can abuse itself, "Playtest" ends up being little more than well-produced, well-directed virtual reality scare mongering.

18. "The Waldo Moment"

It's pretty unfair to "The Waldo Moment" that the real world has surpassed what even Brooker could have imagined. The episode is about a comedian who performs as an angry motion-capture cartoon bear for a satirical TV show eventually running the cartoon as a candidate in a parliamentary byelection. Even in 2013, the episode felt a little too simplistic, and now that we live in a world in which Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, "The Waldo Moment" is at once admirably prescient while feeling just a little too easy with its criticisms of populist politics. As it turns out, sometimes the real world is even darker than Black Mirror.

17. "White Christmas"

The Black Mirror Christmas special marked the show's long-awaited return to television, but its format left something to be desired. The episode packs three separate stories and a framing device into only 75 minutes, and the lack of room to breathe makes it feel less like Black Mirror than a Black Mirror pastiche. That said, the individual mini-stories are all quite inventive, and the presence of Jon Hamm throughout the episode makes for an entertaining dive into the many worlds Charlie Brooker has to offer.

16. "Black Museum"

The fourth season of Black Mirror concludes with another omnibus episode à la "White Christmas," featuring three stories and a framing device-this time centered on a roadside museum in the American desert, where a strange proprietor shows a stranded woman his collection of truly messed up pieces of technology and the even more messed up stories behind them. Where this episode improves on "White Christmas" is in creating a more genuinely compelling frame story that helps pile the disturbing stories on top of each other until its very satisfying conclusion.

15. "Fifteen Million Merits"

"Fifteen Million Merits" is the most futuristic episode of Black Mirror, serving up some incredibly impressive production design to immerse us in a world where people act as power generators by pedaling exercise bikes and earning "merits." Seemingly the only way to get out of that endless fate is to go on a reality TV competition. To say more would ruin the twists, but "Fifteen Million Merits" is classic speculative science fiction. It's beautiful to look at, and offers a lot to chew on.

14. "Men Against Fire"

Maybe the most impressive Black Mirror episodes in terms of pure scale, "Men Against Fire" is set in a future war against creatures called roaches. After an excursion out to raid a house sheltering roaches, one soldier begins to see the truth of his actions. On the one hand, its core message is quite obvious early on, but "Men Against Fire" succeeds by pushing its exploration of humanity's will to otherize and attack into the personal and individual. It's a dark story about how we delude ourselves into violence, with a powerful final image.

13. "Nosedive"

"Nosedive" has two amazing things going for it: Bryce Dallas Howard, whose performance is delightfully unhinged, and director Joe Wright, who brings his great visual eye previously seen in Atonement and Hanna to bear on this brightly colored tale of future social dystopia. It's set in a world where everyone is constantly rating everyone else on a five-point rating scale, and a person's average rating ends up dictating how they're in turn treated by the people around them. It's a classic social satire, incorporating our addiction to social media validation. It's in some ways a tad too simplistic, but as a nearly feature-length film, it's totally engaging.

12. "U.S.S. Callister"

A nearly feature-length episode that takes viewers into a Star Trek-like world, starring Cristin Milioti, Jesse Plemons, Jimmi Simpson, and Michaela Coel. In case you haven't watch it yet, I don't want to give away any of the twists, suffice it to say "U.S.S. Callister" is disturbing in parts, but also maybe the most fun episode Black Mirror has yet to produce.

11. "Arkangel"

The story of a parent who just can't let her daughter live without a safety net. After her child almost goes missing at the park, Rosemarie Dewitt has her daughter implanted with a device that tracks her location and vital signs, as well as giving a view through her eyes. Plus, it has the ability to pixelate anything that might be disturbing or cause too much stress. The effect of the tech on both the daughter and mother as the years go by is a compelling study of what happens when a parent doesn't know her limits. It's a dark, sad tale that goes in surprising direction, held together by wonderfully empathetic direction from none other than Jodie Foster.

10. "Metalhead"

David Slade directs this pure apocalyptic horror thriller. There's not much of a twist here-just a group of characters scavenging through the remains of a world destroyed by small killer robots called dogs. It's also the first Black Mirror episode presented in black-and-white, and the style makes for a dreary, terrifying, suspenseful episode that's at once extremely simple, and pretty damn effective.

9. "White Bear"

"White Bear" begins as a dystopian horror reminiscent of 28 Days Later, but where it ends up is far more disturbing. It's a story about our social appetite for punishment, a recurring theme in the worlds of Black Mirror, that leaves viewers wrestling with their own thirst for so-called justice and the competing value of empathy.

8. "Crocodile"

Not quite the darkest episode of Black Mirror, but not far off. Andrea Riseborough stars as a women with a dark secret from her past, which leads her to commit a series of increasingly disturbing acts, all in the name of perceived self-preservation. Sci-fi enters the story in the form of technology with which police and insurance adjustors can extract raw recollections from people's minds. To the extent that the plot and the technology converge, it's almost mundane, with little functional difference between the show and the real world, which makes the character's actions that much more horrifying.

7. "Shut Up and Dance"

"Shut Up and Dance" is the most purely disturbing episode of Black Mirror. It's about a teenager whose computer is hacked to record him in an extremely private moment. The hacker then uses that as a threat against him, forcing him to run around the city doing increasingly terrible things. There is a twist, of course, because this is Black Mirror. The combination of realism-this could happen to anyone!-and the moral quandary of its ending will leave many viewers hating "Shut Up and Dance," but as with many of the most disturbing stories, the fact that they touch such a nerve speaks their human insight.

6. "The Entire History of You"

This is the episode most often cited as the series' best, and make no mistake, being only fifth on this list is not remotely a mark against it. "The Entire History of You" imagines a near future in which everyone wears implants that record everything they see, allowing them to replay events and share memories with others. Only this is Black Mirror, so of course it goes dark, with the story of a man who suspects his partner is cheating, so he begins obsessing over every detail in his recorded memory.

5. "Hated in the Nation"

The longest episode of Black Mirror, "Hated in the Nation" is a sprawling thriller about social media pile-ons, backdoor hacking, and, surprisingly, the extinction of bees. It stars Kelly Macdonald as a detective who investigates the deaths of people who were targeted for harassment online. Like Jon Ronson's book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed taken to its sickest logical extreme, "Hated in the Nation" is an epic examination of justice in the social media world.

4. "Hang the DJ"

The best of Black Mirror 's fourth season, "Hang the DJ" comes closest in spirit to the beloved "San Junipero." Not only is it a love story, it's got a happy ending. Following a couple matched by an extraordinarily authoritarian dating system, the two move through relationship after relationship, always longing for that spark of attraction the first felt together until finally revolting against their world. The ending reveals "Hang the DJ" to be an impressive conception of the life inside technology, as well as a romantic vision of what it means to find "the one."

3. "San Junipero"

The most openly heartfelt and optimistic episode of Black Mirror to date, "San Junipero" is a story about an incredible love set in the '80s. It's a beautiful story that will make you cry, which can't always be said of this series. Best of all it's anchored by excellent performances from Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis.

2. "The National Anthem"

The first, and also the most insane Black Mirror episode is undoubtedly "The National Anthem," which begins with a princess being kidnapped and the real of a hostage video demanding the British Prime Minister have sex with a pig on live television. What follows is a wild, tense ride through media storm, shifting public sentiment, and political calculation. It's a hard-hitting look at the way TV news and online media can bring out some of the very worst in collective human instincts. A real life story about PM David Cameron's youthful school club initiation involving a dead pig and a weird sex act has hilariously given "The National Anthem" even more social relevance. Nobody could've predicted that.

1. "Be Right Back"

Though darker than "San Junipero," similar themes of death and loss make "Be Right Back" one of the most beautiful, gut-wrenching episodes of TV you could ever hope to watch. It stars Haley Atwell as a woman who has recent lost her husband, played by Domhnall Gleeson. In an attempt to bring him back into her work, she uses a service that collects a deceased person's entire internet activity, and with it creates a facsimile of that loved one. Things get more and more disturbingly real from there, but at its core, "Be Right Back" is about the unbelievable pain of loss, and the difficulty of trying to hold onto a loved one who has passed. It's the ultimate Black Mirror episode. An example of everything the show does best, and its capacity for deep humanist introspection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When premiered six years ago on Channel 4 in the U.K., it landed with high acclaim and cult status. With its third and fourth seasons, produced by Netflix, the cult has burst out into the mainstream. The twelve new episodes has cemented Black Mirror as the heir to The Twilight Zone for the digital age.

# data[].attributes.headline
Outstanding TV Movie and Outstanding Writing for a TV Movie Awards!

# data[].attributes.subject
Outstanding TV Movie and Outstanding Writing for a TV Movie Awards!

# data[].attributes.body
The show and it's cast have been nominated and has won a variety of awards. Episode 4 of season 3, titled 'San Junipero' won two awards at the Emmy's in 2017.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Black Mirror is officially an Emmy Award-winning TV show having taken home the Outstanding TV Movie and Outstanding Writing for a TV Movie trophies for beloved season three episode 'San Junipero.'

The 80s-set, neon-dripped episode, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, was the standout episode for many, its theme of hopefulness marking it out from the show's other rather more disturbing outings.

Ever sarcastic, Charlie Brooker - who we interviewed last year - graced the stage to accept the Outstanding TV Movie award having beat out competitors including fellow BBC series Sherlock and the Robert De Niro-starring The Wizard of Lies.

Black Mirror's other nod is Outstanding Cinematography for 'Nosedive', the Bryce Dallas Howard-starring episode directed by Joe Wright ( Atonement) and written by Parks and Recreation writer Michael Schur and star Rashida Jones.

The 69th Emmy Awards are hosted by late night host Stephen Colbert who kicked off the ceremony with a politically-charged speech which saw him bring former White House press secretary Sean Spicer on stage to mock the President.

Baldwin later won an award for his SNL appearance as Donald Trump poking fun at the President in his acceptance speech for his past failure to win an Emmy for The Apprentice USA.

You can find a full list of the evening's winners below:
Outstanding Drama Series
Better Call Saul

The Crown
The Handmaid's Tale - WINNER
House of Cards

Stranger Things

This Is Us

Westworld
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder)

Claire Foy (The Crown)
Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale) - WINNER
Keri Russell (The Americans)

Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld)

Robin Wright (House of Cards)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) - WINNER
Anthony Hopkins (Westworld)

Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul)

Matthew Rhys (The Americans)

Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan)

Kevin Spacey (House of Cards)

Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us)
Outstanding Limited Series or Movie Big Little Lies - WINNER
Fargo

Feud: Bette and Joan

Genius

The Night Of
Outstanding TV Movie Black Mirror: San Junipero - WINNER
Dolly Parton's Christmas Of Many Colors: Circle Of Love

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Sherlock: The Lying Detective

The Wizard Of Lies
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie
Carrie Coon (Fargo)

Felicity Huffman (American Crime)
Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies) - WINNER
Jessica Lange (Feud: Bette and Joan)

Susan Sarandon (Feud: Bette and Joan)

Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Riz Ahmed (The Night Of) - WINNER
Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock)

Robert De Niro (The Wizard of Lies)

Ewan McGregor (Fargo)

Geoffrey Rush (Genius)

John Turturro (The Night Of)
Outstanding Comedy Series
Atlanta

Black-ish

Master of None

Modern Family

Silicon Valley

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Veep - WINNER Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Pamela Adlon (Better Things)

Jane Fonda (Grace and Frankie)

Allison Janney (Mom)

Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) - WINNER
Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish)

Lily Tomlin (Grace and Frankie)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson (Black-ish)

Aziz Ansari (Master of None)

Zach Galifianakis (Baskets)
Donald Glover (Atlanta) - WINNER
William H. Macy (Shameless)

Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent)
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee

Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver - WINNER
The Late Late Show With James Corden

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Real Time With Bill Maher
Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or TV Movie
David E. Kelley, Big Little Lies
Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror: San Junipero - WINNER
Noah Hawley, Fargo - "The Law of Vacant Places"

Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan - "And the Winner Is..."

Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam, and Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan - "Pilot"
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series
Donald Glover (Atlanta)

Stephen Glover (Atlanta)
Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe (Master of None) - WINNER
Alec Berg (Silicon Valley)

Billy Kimball (Veep)

David Mandel (Veep)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black)
Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale) - WINNER
Chrissy Metz (This Is Us)

Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things)

Samira Wiley (The Handmaid's Tale)

Thandie Newton (Westworld)
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - WINNER
Late Night with Seth Meyers

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Saturday Night Live
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies) - WINNER
Alfred Molina (Feud: Bette and Joan)

David Thewlis (Fargo)

Bill Camp (The Night Of)

Stanley Tucci (Feud: Bette and Joan)

Michael K. Williams (The Night Of)
Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series or TV Movie Jean-Marc Vallée, Big Little Lies - WINNER
Noah Hawley, Fargo - "The Law of Vacant Places"

Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan - "And the Winner Is..."

Ron Howard, Genius - "Einstein: Chapter One"

James Marsh, The Night Of - "The Art of War"

Steven Zaillian, The Night Of - "The Beach"
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series John Lithgow (The Crown) - WINNER
Jonathan Banks (Better Call Saul)

Mandy Patinkin (Homeland)

Michael Kelly (House of Cards)

David Harbour (Stranger Things)

Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us)

Jeffrey Wright (Westworld)
Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live) - WINNER
Vanessa Beyer (Saturday Night Live)

Leslie Jones (Saturday Night Live)

Anna Chlumsky (Veep)

Judith Light (Transparent)

Katheryn Hahn (Transparent)
Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Alec Baldwin (Saturday Night Live) - WINNER
Louie Anderson (Baskets)

Ty Burrell (Modern Family)

Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)

Tony Hale (Veep)

Matt Walsh (Veep)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie
Judy Davis, Feud
Laura Dern, Big Little Lies - WINNER
Jackie Hoffman, Feud

Regina King, American Crime

Michelle Pfeiffer, The Wizard of Lies

Shailene Woodley, Big Little Lies
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, The Americans - "The Soviet Division"

Gordon Smith, Better Call Saul - "Chicanery"

Peter Morgan, The Crown - "Assassins"
Bruce Miller, The Handmaid's Tale - "Offred" - WINNER
The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things - "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers"

Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Westworld - The Bicameral Mind"
Outstanding Variety Sketch Series
Billy on the Street

Documentary Now!

Drunk History

Portlandia
Saturday Night Live - WINNER
Tracey Ullman's Show
Oustanding Directing for a Drama series
Vince Gilligan, Better Call Saul - "Witness"

Stephen Daldry, The Crown - "Hyde Park Corner"
Reed Morano, The Handmaid's Tale - "Offred" - WINNER
Kate Dennis, The Handmaid's Tale - "The Bridge"

Lesli Linka Glatter, Homeland - "America First"

The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things - "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers"

Jonathan Nolan, Westworld - "The Bicameral Mind"
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series Donald Glover, Atlanta - "B.A.N." - WINNER
Jamie Babbit, Silicon Valley - "Intellectual Property"

Morgan Sackett, Veep - "Blurb"

David Mandel, Veep - "Groundbreaking"

Dale Stern, Veep - "Justice"
Directing for a Variety Series
Derek Waters & Jeremy Konner - Drunk History

Andy Fisher - Jimmy Kimmel Live

Paul Pennolino - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Jim Hoskinson - The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Don Roy King - Saturday Night Live - WINNER Outstanding Reality Competition Series
The Amazing Race

American Ninja Warrior

Project Runway

RuPaul's Drag Race

Top Chef
The Voice - WINNER
Reuse content

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Everyone's favourite Black Mirror episode San Junipero just won two Emmys

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Black Mirror is officially an Emmy Award-winning TV show having taken home the Outstanding TV Movie and Outstanding Writing for a TV Movie trophies for beloved season three episode 'San Junipero.' The 80s-set, neon-dripped episode, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, was the standout episode for many, its theme of hopefulness marking it out from the show's other rather more disturbing outings.

# data[].attributes.headline
Can Black Mirror Writer Charlie Brooker predict the future? 

# data[].attributes.subject
Can Black Mirror Writer Charlie Brooker predict the future? 

# data[].attributes.body
Since the show first aired there's been a number of occasions where themes and ideas that appeared in the series have occurred in real life. The biggest being the correlation between the first episode 'The National Anthem' and the David Cameron #piggate fiasco.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The first question people were asking me was, Did I know anything about it? And the answer is no, absolutely not. I probably wouldn't have bothered writing an episode of a fictional comedy-drama if I'd known. I'd have been running around screaming it into traffic. It's a complete coincidence, albeit a quite bizarre one."

To fill you in: four years ago, Charlie Brooker's dystopian TV series Black Mirror began with an episode called the National Anthem, in which the prime minister of Britain - to hoots of derision on social media - is required to have sex with a pig on television in order to ransom a kidnapped princess. On Monday, the Daily Mail printed extracts from Lord Ashcroft's biography of David Cameron, in which Ashcroft claims to have been told by a current MP that Britain's real prime minister allegedly "inserted a private part of his anatomy" into the mouth of a dead pig during an initiation ceremony while he was studying at Oxford. The MP knows someone with photographic evidence, according to Ashcroft, but he does not supply any.

For Cameron, whether or not the allegation is true (Downing Street have refused to comment), it must be unspeakably embarrassing. For Brooker, it is just deeply, deeply weird. Indeed, when the story broke, and his phone went crazy, he was just sitting down to work on another dystopian script idea. "I did genuinely for a moment wonder if reality was a simulation, whether it exists only to trick me. Which isn't meant to sound narcissistic," he says. "It's just a bit of a worry."

According to Brooker, the real origins of his pig storyline are the media frenzy that followed Gordon Brown's "bigot" remarks in 2010, and an edition of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic, in which, as he remembers it, a police chief is required to have sex with a hog. The comic itself may have picked the idea up from what seems to be a standard piece of political wisdom, attributed by Hunter S Thompson to Lyndon Johnson, in which a politician smears a rival by falsely "calling him a pig-fucker" in order to "make the sonofabitch deny it".

While developing Black Mirror at Channel 4, Brooker remembers exploring alternatives to pigs. "We thought all through the farmyard," he says. "At one point we were thinking of a giant wheel of cheese. Then we came back to the pig ... You needed something that straddles the line between comic and horrifying. "

Even so, Brooker has quite a record of at least seeming to be clairvoyant. Nathan Barley, the sitcom he made with Chris Morris in 2005, now looks like a straight-faced preview of iPhones, selfies, YouTube and hipsters. Just a week ago, G Clay Whittaker made similar claims of prophecy for various Black Mirror episodes in the Daily Beast - with the exception of the pig episode. "I'm not going to compare any political event to this," he wrote, wrongly, it now seems.

For his part, Brooker says that he never seeks to make predictions in his scripts, even if he ends up doing so. What makes this case so strange however, is that he actually tried to do the opposite in the National Anthem - to think up, as he puts it, "an absurd and ridiculous notion". Today, he insists he actually feels quite sorry for Cameron. "In the episode itself," he says, "it's worth pointing out that it doesn't actually damage the prime minister in the long run." At least Downing Street's communications team can cling on to that.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Charlie Brooker on Cameron and #piggate: 'I'd have been screaming it into traffic if I'd known'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The first question people were asking me was, Did I know anything about it? And the answer is no, absolutely not. I probably wouldn't have bothered writing an episode of a fictional comedy-drama if I'd known. I'd have been running around screaming it into traffic. It's a complete coincidence, albeit a quite bizarre one."

# data[].attributes.body
Described by channel 4 as being 'Charlie Brooker's series of unsettling dark drama brimming with near-future madness'.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Suspenseful, satirical series that taps into our collective unease about the modern world